Do you
suffer from bouts of diarrhoea and/or constipation? Are your
bowel movements less than once a day? Or are you frequently
tired or do you often feel bloated or mentally sluggish? If so,
you may want to consider improving your bowel health in order to
improve your overall health.

So why is
good bowel health so important? According to the Royal Society
of Medicine, ‘over 90% of all chronic diseases are due to an
infection of the gastrointestinal tract’. You may already have
heard it said that ‘death begins in the bowel’ and this is
indeed true.

The
bowel is in fact a waste treatment system, but with neglect and
abuse - it becomes a cesspool.
Whenever the bowel is clean and working well, we are healthy and
happy; but if it’s left to stagnate and become overburdened with
toxins, it will poison the body - a process known as
auto-intoxication. Auto-intoxication can cause depression,
fatigue, irritability, poor concentration, insomnia, muscular
aches, bloating, headaches, poor skin, bad breath and much
more. In fact, if toxins are left to accumulate inside the
body, your organs slow down to cause degenerative diseases and
serious health problems.

The bowel,
otherwise known as the large intestine or colon is approximately
5 feet long and is primarily made up of muscle. The muscles in
the bowel contract (and relax) to push liquefied waste matter
along its length. The bowel's main function is to absorb water
and mineral salts from faecal matter and to pass these nutrients
into the blood or lymphatic vessels in order to keep levels in
the body constant and prevent dehydration. A sluggish bowel can
hold onto several pounds of old toxic and poisonous waste
material. Because the bowel can also reabsorb many soluble
toxins, it’s important that your bowel movements are regular and
take place daily to enable toxins to be eliminated from the body
as swiftly as possible.

In
addition, the bowel helps the body synthesise vitamin K
(required for blood clotting), some B vitamins and it also helps
deal with gases such as hydrogen, carbon dioxide, methane and
hydrogen sulphide. The remaining semi-solid waste is made up of
approximately 60% to 70% water, 10% to 30% bacteria, and also
indigestible cellulose, dead cells and other waste pigments.

Essentially, the bowel also provides the passage for elimination
of all remaining waste which is collected in the rectum and
excreted through the anus at intervals. Faecal matter can
remain in the bowel any length of time from 10 hours to several
days, depending on the efficiency of the colon; however the
shorter the transit time, the better. Unfortunately modern
diets – refined, processed, low-fibre foods and animal fats,
along with the use of medication and poor health habits and
lifestyles can often result in greatly increased transit times.
The colon can become a breeding ground for parasites, bacteria
and viruses. If your colon is not clean, then your body won’t
absorb nutrients from food as effectively as it could.

Almost all
mammals, including man, should have one bowel movement for
every meal that is eaten every day! Non-westernised
societies have healthier digestive systems because they eat less
processed food, exercise more and have less stress. So how can
you naturally improve the efficiency of your bowels?

1. Increase Your Fibre Intake

Dietary
fibre (both soluble and insoluble) is required to provide bulk
for the semi-solid faeces and to encourage timely and regular
movement throughout the colon. High
levels of dietary fibre reduce the amount of time toxic
materials remain in the body. From
research, it has been shown that the body needs 30g to 50g fibre
a day in order to remain healthy. On average however, a typical
‘healthy’ British diet provides only 12g fibre, so additional
fibre intake in the form of supplements is essential.
According to the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, if
you increase your daily fibre intake by a further 13g, then
you’ll reduce the risk of colon cancer by 31%. Nature’s
Sunshine’s ‘Bowel
Build’ can help promote healthy digestion
and regular elimination from the colon.

If you
suffer with constipation, you may want to consider taking either
‘Bowel
Build’ (for regular but
sluggish movements) or ‘LOCLO’
(for irregular, cramping/explosive bowel movements). ‘Psyllium
Hulls Combination’ provides additional
bulk to the diet and has a mucilaginous quality to aid transit.
Another recommendation is to soak a heaped teaspoon of flaxseeds
in filtered water overnight. Then first thing in the
morning, add more water to the mix and then quickly swallow it
down. In addition to the extra roughage and essential
fatty acids the seeds provide, the flaxseeds soften and swell to
provide further mucilaginous substance that aids bowel
movements. If you suffer from diarrhoea, then ‘Activated
Charcoal’ is also recommended to help
absorb toxins and expel intestinal gas.

2. Increase Your Water Intake

As you
increase your intake of fibre, it’s also essential that you
increase your water consumption to at least 2 litres a day.
Water is important to enable the insoluble fibre in your diet to
swell up inside the colon and absorb the toxic waste, resulting
in more efficient elimination. If you do not drink sufficient
water, the waste transit actually slows down or can even block
up proper elimination, leading to constipation and toxin
stagnation. Drinking
magnetised filtered water and then add
Liquid Chlorophyll which
are so
much better for you and can help establish balance
and harmony in the body and encourage healthy bowel flora.

3. Change Your Diet and Eating Pattern

To keep
the bowel healthy, it’s important to eat a good diet rich in
wholefoods, vegetables, grains, pulses, nuts and seeds. Mucus-forming
foods such as meat, fish, eggs, cheese, sugar and milk in fact
clog the body, preventing the absorption of vital nutrients.
These foods also stick to the lining of the bowel which
encourage further decay and subsequent growth of bad bacteria.
Try to be relaxed at mealtimes, sit down, eat slowly and chew
your food properly to aid digestion. Always eat breakfast
and aim to eat a small evening meal by 7.30pm at the latest.

4. Probiotics – the Good Bacteria

Unfortunately good intestinal bacteria can be destroyed through
antibiotics, medication, cooked food, processed food, coffee,
alcohol and prolonged stress. It’s therefore important to take
a good supply of beneficial bacteria or probiotics every 3-6
months which should contain the main strains Lactobacillus
Acidophilus, Bifidus and Bulgaricus. Unlike bad bacteria that
cause disease, these beneficial bacteria strains produce
digestive enzymes and assist in the assimilation of nutrients.
They also produce important vitamins such as vitamin K and the B
vitamins (B1, B2, and B12) and help inhibit the overgrowth of
harmful bacteria, fungi and yeasts such as Candida Albicans.
Nature’s Sunshine’s ‘Bifidophilus
Flora Force’ provides billions of
beneficial intestinal micro-organisms along with fructo-oligosaccharides
to support their growth.

5. Reduce Your Stress

The more
stressful your lifestyle, the more your body will not work
effectively in digesting food and getting rid of its toxic
waste. It’s important for you to get plenty of rest and
relaxation, perhaps you could take up yoga or pilates, but do
make sure you get sufficient sleep at night. Always endeavour
to get a healthy work/family/leisure balance in life, which may
mean that you have to make changes to your present lifestyle.

6. Exercise!

Daily
exercise, such as walking, swimming and yoga, is important as it
helps to stimulate regular bowel movement. Insufficient
exercise slows down bowel action and reduces normal circulation
within the digestive system.

It takes a long time to develop a chronic, degenerative disease,
and similarly it takes a long time to reverse such a condition.
Prevention is always better than cure; so whatever we can do to
stop ‘auto-intoxication’ will help slow down the disease
process. We often overlook our bowels, yet good bowel health is
so important. Do look after your bowels and they will look
after you!

The nutritional supplement product links stated in this article can only be purchased from this website in UK and in Europe; however all other health product links stated on this page are available worldwide from Natural Body Healing.

The above information should not be treated as a substitute for the
medical advice of your own doctor or any other health care
professional.